Logbook: 280 people rescued, two babies born.

2:45 Call from Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) Rome, informing us about new position of two refugee boats (calculated point of encounter), which had set off a short time ago in Sabratah, Libya.

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5:39 First boat on the radar. Dinghy ‘Charlotti’ put to water, loaded with three bags of life vests. Marked the refugee boat with a signal rocket for the ‘Iuventa‘ RIB (rigid inflatable boat), because the ‘Iuventa’ (rescue boat belonging to Jugend Rettet (Youth Rescues)) arrived 15 minutes after us.

We and the ‘Iuventa‘ RIB provided the 160 people on the first boat (including about 10 women and four children, one of them a newborn) with life vests. Towed the boat alongside the ‘Iuventa’, whose crew took the refugees on board.

We had just finished when a second boat appeared. The ‘Iuventa’s’ and our RIBs provided life vests to 120 people. Before that the Sea-Eye dinghy took a mother with a baby to the ‘Iuventa’.

The mothers were evacuated before they gave birth. Both went onto the Garibaldi and from there by helicopter to Italy.